In the autumn of 1609, roughly 500 English colonists were alive at Jamestown. By spring, fewer than 60 remained. The rest had been killed by starvation, disease, Powhatan arrows — and in at least a few cases, eaten by the survivors.
The Starving Time is the darkest chapter in the story of America’s first permanent English settlement, and it was far worse than anything you learned in school. Jamestown was never a noble experiment in civilization. It was a business venture built on lies, planted in a poisoned swamp during the worst drought in 770 years, and populated by men who were slowly being killed by their own drinking water.
This video tells the full story of what happened inside James Fort during the winter of 1609–1610: how the Virginia Company’s Third Supply fleet was scattered by a hurricane, stranding the new governor in Bermuda and dumping 300 starving newcomers on a colony that could barely feed 200. How Powhatan warriors sealed the English inside their own walls and picked off anyone who ventured out. How the colonists ate their horses, then their dogs, then their cats, then their shoe leather, then their dead. And how, in 2012, archaeologists found the bones of a fourteen-year-old girl with knife marks on her skull — the first physical proof that the cannibalism stories had been true all along.
Featuring the accounts of George Percy, John Smith, and the Ancient Planters, alongside modern archaeological findings from the Jamestown Rediscovery project and forensic analysis by Douglas Owsley at the Smithsonian Institution.
📍 TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 — The Virginia Company's Lie
2:41 — The Worst Drought in 770 Years
4:06 — Arsenic in the Drinking Water
7:13 — The Third Supply Fleet
9:14 — John Smith's Gunpowder Accident
11:29 — Bread Stuffed in Dead Men's Mouths
12:26 — The Siege of Jamestown
13:22 — Eating Horses, Dogs, Rats, and Shoe Leather
16:32 — The Cannibalism
18:20 — Jane: The Girl in the Trash Pit
22:16 — Gates Abandons the Colony
23:15 — The Fleet That Saved America
📚 SOURCES & FURTHER READING:
https://historicjamestowne.org/history/history-of-jamestown/the-starving-time/https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/starving-time-the/https://www.britannica.com/place/Jamestown-Colony/The-Starving-Time-and-near-abandonment-1609-11https://historicjamestowne.org/collections/artifacts/category/starving-time/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starving_Timehttps://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/sea-venture/https://www.wm.edu/news/stories/2011/did-bad-water-contribute-to-the-starving-time123.phphttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown,_Virginia📋 ABOUT THIS VIDEO:
This video covers the Jamestown Starving Time of 1609–1610, the catastrophic famine and siege at James Fort in the Virginia Colony founded by the Virginia Company of London in May 1607. Approximately 500 colonists including those from the Third Supply fleet of nine ships were reduced to roughly 60 survivors over the winter. Key figures include Captain John Smith who departed October 1609 after a gunpowder injury, George Percy who served as president of the Jamestown council, Sir Thomas Gates who was shipwrecked aboard the Sea Venture on Bermuda in July 1609, Thomas West Lord De La Warr who arrived June 1610, Chief Powhatan (Wahunsenacawh) leader of the Tsenacomoco confederation of 28–32 Algonquian-speaking groups, and John Ratcliffe who was captured and tortured to death by Powhatan warriors in November 1609. Archaeological evidence recovered by the Jamestown Rediscovery project in 2012 including the remains of a 14-year-old girl designated Jane with cut marks analyzed by Douglas Owsley at the Smithsonian Institution confirmed survival cannibalism at the site. Dendrochronological studies of bald cypress trees established a severe drought from 1606 to 1612 the worst in 770 years. The First Anglo-Powhatan War 1610–1614 followed directly from the siege. The colony was saved by Lord De La Warr’s arrival and later sustained by John Rolfe’s development of tobacco cultivation circa 1612–1614. Between 1607 and 1625 approximately 6000 colonists were sent to Jamestown with an overall mortality rate near 80 percent.
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